Its hard to make sense of it, but I think he was trying to say that hiring sex workers is just one thing among a variety of activities a person engages when going to Thailand and that his critics were being puritanical and/or racist by focussing on that one thing rather than, say, scuba diving or eating local food, that he did in Thailand. Unwittingly he seems to be saying that hiring the bodies of young women is just a regular part of his lifestyle and he doesn’t get why this would be objectionable or even odd for 99% of people.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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3150
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)
by Simon inuh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.
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3150
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)
by Simon inuh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.
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slimboyfat
Gosh Lloyd being interviewed by a channel that barely makes 1000 views per video. How low he has fallen. Given the low numbers, I don't think this guy would cancel the interview. If anything it will be his most viewed video.
He won’t go far if that’s indicative of his standards.
Anyone with any sense could see that the kind of publicity LE can provide is not publicity you want to have.
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Elders testing some promising men by talking like an apostate?
by Person incouple years ago as a promising ms i had some weird conversations with two young elders.
it was always as we where alone only i and the elder.
they would initiate a conversations about things like blood doctrine, celebrating birthdays, view on homosexuality etc.
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slimboyfat
Seems doubtful.
I think we on the forum and online generally don’t appreciate just how seldom “apostasy” crosses the minds of ordinary JWs. For most it’s just not an issue, until it is, then often they leave. You don’t get many JWs long term worrying about apostasy either in themselves or others. They’ve got other things to think about, such as all the talks and tasks they have to perform, the CO visit and so on.
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2023 Yearly Report UNDER the Microscope
by raymond frantz inhttps://youtu.be/pi7sn2rnrke?si=lnvklqct6nuayv2q.
branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 85 (= down one from 86 from the previous year and quite possibly they are referring to the hong kong bethel that closed down recently).
number of lands reporting: 239 ( =the same as 2022).
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slimboyfat
West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, presumably?
Also interesting that they’ve adopted Türkiye in place of Turkey. When did that start?
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2023 Yearly Report UNDER the Microscope
by raymond frantz inhttps://youtu.be/pi7sn2rnrke?si=lnvklqct6nuayv2q.
branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 85 (= down one from 86 from the previous year and quite possibly they are referring to the hong kong bethel that closed down recently).
number of lands reporting: 239 ( =the same as 2022).
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slimboyfat
Okay, despite the complete lack of interest, I will nevertheless cut the suspense and reveal that the figures they stopped publishing this year, after many decades of reports, are (drum roll): the amount of money spent on special pioneers, missionaries, and circuit overseers ($242 million in the last report) and the number of ordained ministers at branches worldwide (21,629 in the last report). Unless they published these figures somewhere else this time? -
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2023 Yearly Report UNDER the Microscope
by raymond frantz inhttps://youtu.be/pi7sn2rnrke?si=lnvklqct6nuayv2q.
branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 85 (= down one from 86 from the previous year and quite possibly they are referring to the hong kong bethel that closed down recently).
number of lands reporting: 239 ( =the same as 2022).
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slimboyfat
Did you notice which figures they stopped publishing this year?
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Where’s the 2023 Service Report?
by slimboyfat inwhat’s keeping them?
this has got to be the latest it’s ever been.
maybe it’s the last one they’ll ever publish too, after dropping reporting hours for publishers ….
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slimboyfat
What are the reasons? Yes shunning is likely to be a factor. What else? The high level of commitment required. The sense of mission preaching gives for some. The crazy state of the world right now in view of JW end-time teaching. Attraction to a definite black/white set of beliefs and rules in contrast with changing ethical standards in society. Everything being spoon fed and not having to think too much might appeal to some. I don’t know what else. That’s just some explanations I come up with.
The difference in the fate of mainstream churches compared with JWs is extreme. Takes these two graphs. The first shows the decline of members of the Church of Scotland since 1957 where membership has dropped to about a fifth of the peak. The second shows the increase JW publishers in the UK over the same period.
There are single churches in other denominations that are growing, but I don’t think there’s any other denomination over 100,000 members still growing in the UK as JWs are. But I’d be interested to proved wrong if anyone has examples. Perhaps most likely candidates are Pentecostal churches but even these have declined in recent years.
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Where’s the 2023 Service Report?
by slimboyfat inwhat’s keeping them?
this has got to be the latest it’s ever been.
maybe it’s the last one they’ll ever publish too, after dropping reporting hours for publishers ….
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slimboyfat
It’s much lower growth than they used to have but it’s much better than other churches. Still having growth 3% in Germany, 6% in Ireland, 2% in Austria, 6% in Czech Republic and so on is pretty remarkable at this point.
Yes they have decline across most of Latin America. I wonder what’s causing that.
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Where’s the 2023 Service Report?
by slimboyfat inwhat’s keeping them?
this has got to be the latest it’s ever been.
maybe it’s the last one they’ll ever publish too, after dropping reporting hours for publishers ….
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slimboyfat
Avoiding severe decline for any church in the secular western world is pretty extraordinary.
France, Britain, Germany up too. Yes some of it will be immigrants, but the overall ratio is climbing in these countries too. Plus other churches benefit from immigrants joining too, yet are still in decline.
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3150
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)
by Simon inuh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.
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slimboyfat
This is why that begging stunt was a bad idea, especially since he had absolutely no intention of making his channel better.
Yeah he basically said send me your money to keep the channel going, and then promptly all but abandoned the channel and ran off to spend the money. When are his backers going to wake up? Mind you these are the same people, some of them, who sent him money for years on the basis the it “all gets ploughed back into the channel”, yet were not fazed by his own admission that he spent it on prostitutes and drugs on a regular, semi-regular, or whatever, basis. For some of them, if that didn’t shake them off then perhaps nothing will.